Chocolate Ears
by KarotsaMused
Summary: It's Easter, two years later. A pregnant conversation between Sanzo and Goku (E&A)


A/N: Disclaimer: Saiyuki isn't mine.  
  
Welcome to the 39 fic. Uh, for those of you who care about order, it's kinda more 393. I guess. Yeah. Set in the Eights and Aces 'verse. Everybody who has complained thus far that I haven't given warnings about this being an AU, I have. You just don't read my Goddamn' author's notes, you lazy-asses. Sorry for the rant, I'm just sick of idiots who don't pay attention.  
  
Anyway, happy Easter. *grin* For an Easter fic, I think this is pretty apt. All my 39 fics revolve around food of some sort. From Garlic to...chocolate bunnies. Waha! Here's a little explanation, in case my intimations aren't enough: Gonou graduated at the end of the year in which Eights and Aces takes place, a year early. He goes to college to become a teacher. Sanzo, meanwhile, is left to live out his senior year without Gonou around. With nobody but Lirin and Goku to hang out with, it was a strange year. This is set two years after Eights and Aces, the Easter right after Goku's eighteenth birthday. (His b-day's the fifth, right? Riiiight?)  
  
Enjoy!  
  
***  
  
Chocolate. He was absolutely coated in chocolate. It ran in smears from his face down his neck, staining the collar of his shirt in one place. It ran in smears from his hands to his wrists. The idiot had managed to get it on his -elbows-, for Pete's sake. He licked his lips and grinned like a jackal.  
  
"Aren't you gonna eat yours?" The blonde in question gave a long-suffering sigh and glanced over to the cellophane-coated chocolate bunny on his desk. It had been a surprise gift that morning, a rabbit for each of them, with all the flourish of Christmas but without the warm fuzzy feeling. No plastic grass, no egg hunts, no jellybeans nor gumdrops. But a chocolate bunny. Half a pound of dark, rich chocolate, the sort that makes your stomach curdle if it's eaten straight up. The sort that slides through your soul and can wake you up better than black coffee.   
  
"Ne, Sanzo?" The blonde in question ran his hand down the cold chain about his neck, fiddling absently with the glittering cross that hung against his breast. A religious holiday, one built to reaffirm his faith. The fact that he was faithless did not seem to matter. He hated attending seminary, but would go, and to services and night meetings and all the trappings of the faith he had adopted. It was, to him, simply another study to be lived through. He had no dreams of becoming a priest, but he knew it was bound to happen. The cross in his hand was frigid, but warmed as it stole heat from his skin.  
  
"No." Chocolate turned his stomach. It was too rich, too fantastic, too close to sin. He had sworn to renounce sin, but that had not stopped his indulgences. Chocolate was too much for even him, though. The beautiful child, just barely out of his teens, with hair like spun gold and eyes that damned as casually as the rest in his class would bless. The beautiful child who cared nothing for the Holy Lord God but devoted himself to learning every facet of what it is to serve Him. Threw himself into it perhaps because of his youth, because he was the youngest of all those in his class, because he was the beautiful child. Because beneath all of that he had something to prove. That did not keep him from sin, but richness burned at his insides.  
  
"Then can I have it?" His eyes were hopeful, unnatural gold and flecked with brown and sparkling with his youth. The boy so freshly a man, not yet a month into legal adulthood. The party was more than he had expected, more than he had ever been given. He had gotten gifts, personal gifts from people who cared. A promise of driving lessons from his employer. A book of card games to learn from a familiar face that couldn't make it. He's in college to become a teacher. He's passed all of us by. From his surrogate brother, a gag gift in place of his presence as well. He's at work to pay off his debts. He's in the hole. This blow-up doll will have to do. And, around her wrist, a handsome watch. He -is- making something for himself, then. From Sanzo, a jacket. The irony was wonderful. Now you can't nag me about being cold. It doesn't matter that you worry about -my- health. This is about yours.  
  
"You'll make yourself sick." This is about your health. About your well-being. It's strange, caring about someone where before selfishness had given way to nihilism and only a small warm spot for the caring ear of a man long gone. He graduated early, went to college early. Left Sanzo alone. The year without Gonou was hard. Hard because he had well and truly severed his strongest tie to the best friend he ever had. Hard because he was stuck in high school and Gonou was off in the nebulous realm of higher learning. Hard because he had to find something to do with himself. So he found God. And clung tightly to Him and to Goku.  
  
"But that means I can have it, right?" The difference between the faceless benevolence and promised love of an unfamiliar entity and the doting care of a butler-cum-bodyguard is not so great. Where God may ask penitence in three Hail Mary's and a candle lit for the deceased, Goku does not ask for anything more than attention. Goku does not ask for anything more than the damning eyes to be turned upon him, no matter their mood. The year without Gonou was hard, but having Goku always at his side made life easier. The constant presence never allowed real loneliness to set in, and slowly his hot fingers worked their way into Sanzo's heart. The first kiss shared after a hot meal was a stupid act of impulse. Goku had been shoved violently away after Sanzo's heart had resumed beating. Goku had left the room with the tray and Sanzo had shoved his head out the window to clear his head of the scent of garlic.   
  
"Yes." The weeks after that had been awkward and silent as they never spoke of the moment but Goku always licked his lips and drifted in thought. Sanzo took to hitting him, cuffing him none-too-gently when his mind began to wander. The dreamy look on his face was too much. There were the little gestures, how Goku yelled at him when he lit a cigarette. How he yelled at Goku when the kid overate. How they always, always talked, even if there was nothing to talk about. The conversations lasted hours and spanned only a few sentences that were few and far between. One with a book in his lap and the other seated at the desk, his elbow on the tray he had brought in.  
  
"Thanks! Hm, I think I'll have to save it." It has been the two of them alone for a very long time. Every instant of free time, they are together. Not by force so much as by choice, because an old edict that had thrown them together had died long before. Goku learned to respect personal space, to step around Sanzo and read between his words. Sanzo learned some measure of tolerance, for as Goku matured so did he. The urchin good for nothing but fighting found in him a love of a good story, and spent much of his time reading when Sanzo wasn't around. He was always ready with an excited paraphrase when Sanzo returned, and the blonde would listen to clear his head of the drone of religion. He understood how it ignited such passion in other men's hearts, but found himself neither willing nor able to follow suit. Those evenings and afternoons and days were frustrating, and Goku was a respite from it, even as he stumbled over his words and forgot punch lines or important plot points.  
  
"Look at you. You're a mess. Go wash up, filthy thing." Chocolate. He was absolutely coated in rich, dark chocolate. No doubt expensive, but she could afford it. In some show of benevolence, she bought them chocolate. In some show of benevolence, she threw them together. Take care of him, Goku, because he needs you whether he'll say it or not. Protect him. That lousy ruse had died long before, but it was still a valid excuse for him on the days when Sanzo wanted to be alone and Goku did not. He would never purposefully annoy Sanzo without some deeper reason, some need to protect or please him found only at the end of the scenic route. He left the room and Sanzo could hear water running. He rummaged in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and lit one up, sitting on the sill of his window and leaning into the cool spring evening. When Goku returned, his face and arms and neck were clean, still slightly damp from their washing. He frowned.  
  
"San-zo. It's a terrible habit. What sort of priest are you?" Sanzo looked back to him with an eyebrow raised. He left the cigarette in his mouth, breathing slow and lazy and taking him in. The sixteen-year-old bundle of energy had been replaced by a long, sinewy thing with control over his limbs and practiced dexterity. The loud, golden thing had dimmed to a tanned man with a deeper voice and more intelligence than he was given credit. The nuisance had become welcomed because he -cared- so hard. In his stance of stubborn chiding, he was almost handsome. Not a very good priest at all, Sanzo thought.   
  
"Shut up." He rubbed the cigarette out on the sill, pitching it into the garden with a hundred other discarded butts that killed the roses. It was a small aquiescence, as he still had a pack in his pocket, but a victory for Goku nonetheless. He stared into his bedroom, the room he hadn't left since he came to this house as a child. He still loved with her, with his benefactress, his 'loving' aunt. She hadn't kicked him out, but he knew she would sometime. He'd have to find an apartment, a -real- job. Goku would come with him. Goku wouldn't dare be left behind. Goku had to come with him. Goku who was shuffling his feet and fidgeting.  
  
"What?" He hated that look on Goku, the suppression of something he really wanted to say but was afraid of retribution. The way his face screwed up and he studied the carpet for a threadcount. The way he danced, friction from carpet to socked feet that sent static snaps up his legs. He never wore shoes in Sanzo's room anymore, but kicked them off by the door. Goku glanced up and smiled a little half-smile.  
  
"It's been two years. More than two years. Sanzo, I..." His tone spoke of hidden thoughts, harbored thoughts collected and stored and hated for what felt like ages. His own prison, his own iron cage to hide himself inside to protect his soft underside from those beautiful, damning eyes. His tone curled at the edges of his words, trailed into nothingness under that stare.   
  
"It was done. It can't be undone." His tone spoke of utter finality, the dropping of the trellis, the slamming of the door. His own memories, his own life hidden behind those closed doors to protect his soft underside from the claws he himself possesses. His tone was flat and heavy, leaving no room for doubt but the tiny pause between the sentences in which he took breath.  
  
"Sanzo, I want you to do it again." Silence after his statement hung thick and oppressive. They stared at each other as their hearts sat dormant for that one tiny instant in which Goku's words registered. Two years. More than two years. Hidden thoughts, harbored thoughts, locked away under heady silences and friendly affability and cuffs to the head. A constant undercurrent neither wanted to acknowledge but indulged in during empty moments to fill the void. Goku and Sanzo were always together, even after they were no longer chained at the wrist. Wherever Sanzo went, so went Goku. Whenever Sanzo ate, so ate Goku. And in between those times to tide himself over. Whenever Goku wanted to talk, Sanzo listened. Whenever Sanzo wanted to smoke, Goku chided him. There was care between them, a slow friendship that soon thrummed in the blood and was as natural as breathing. They knew how to read one another, how to predict one another. How to complete one another.  
  
"You don't get to tell me what to do." Sanzo stood and shoved Goku. Hard. The young man stumbled backward, landing with a bump on Sanzo's bed. The blonde stood over him, scowling prettily, until Goku grabbed his shoulders and switched their positions, sitting over Sanzo on the bed.  
  
"You don't get to shove me out this time. I'm a man now." Goku grinned down at Sanzo, who squirmed but was ultimately overtaken by Goku's strength. Though smaller in stature, Goku was infinitely stronger and knew how to overpower another body. He romanced like he fought. Like he fought, Goku dived in headfirst, attacking Sanzo's mouth with lips and tongue, inept but passionate. His mouth was hot and sweet and tasted of chocolate. A mouth that was normally drawn into thin, hard lines relaxed against Goku, and Sanzo stopped fighting. Not once, however, did he respond.  
  
"I'm going straight to hell for this," Sanzo said when Goku pulled back to breathe. The sudden thought occurred to him as the cross around his neck was pressed into his skin by Goku's weight. The religious symbol was embedded into his flesh by such unholy means. There was a fine sheen of saliva on his mouth and sweat on his forehead. In the lamplight, the spray of his golden hair haloed his face in some mockery of an angel. His sleepy eyes, those vicious eyes, were hooded and brilliant, open and vulnerable. Goku smiled.  
  
"All right, then. I'll go, too." 


End file.
